Educational institutions, such as schools and universities, constantly seek ways to leverage technology to effectively educate their students. Some schools have attempted to utilize students' mobile devices (such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops) for portions of the learning experience due to the widespread proliferation of these devices. But mobile devices have also proven to be a distraction in the classroom environment, and in some cases, can be used as a tool for cheating.
Attempts to manage student devices in a classroom setting have been largely unsuccessful. In many classrooms, teachers ban mobile devices despite the potential efficiency benefits over pen and paper, because the potential distraction and cheating risks are too high. When an instructor pauses from teaching to request that a student turn off a ringing phone, this interrupts the flow of teaching and learning. Additionally, students can use their unmanaged mobile devices to access the Internet during class and look up answers to exams.
Current technological solutions for limiting use of mobile devices in the classroom are largely device-specific applications that allow parents to place restrictions on their children's devices. For example, a parent can set their child's cell phone to not accept or place calls when located within a geofenced school area. But this can pose problems when a student is no longer in class but still on school campus, and does not address the overarching problem of managing all the mobile devices in a classroom.
Centralized solutions have been largely non-existent, in part because of the many different types of mobile devices available, with disparate operating systems and applications. Additionally, school systems cannot afford to purchase and maintain specialized mobile devices for all of their students. Even if they could, it would not solve the issue of students' personal mobile devices becoming a distraction in class.
Based on at least these problems, a need exists for systems that better manage mobile devices to increase the efficiency of teaching in a classroom environment.